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Accepted Paper:
Second wives, kelins and official wives in Central Asia
Rano Turaeva
(Ludwig Maximillian University of Munich)
The collapse of the Soviet Union had drastic political and economic effects on the dependent economies of Central Asia resulting in turmoil in the region. Further, the path taken by the Central Asian republics (except Kazakhstan) led to the slow erosion of the existing infrastructure and industrial production, which resulted in the loss of jobs and economic deficiency and the failure to provide the basic daily necessities. Some scholars of the post-Soviet transition have referred to this change as “de-development” or “de-modernization” which is characterized by the erosion of development. The same observations could also be heard from female residents of the region, many of whom marked the collapse of the Soviet Union as a beginning of going backwards. The paper will present case studies of women lovers, second wives, official wives and kelins to underline political economy of marriage patterns and social status in Central Asia. I advance the argument that there are various social hierarchies and opportunities within such marriage and relationship patterns which directly relate to the social status system and changing family structures in Central Asia.